NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION SATELLITE OPERATIONS FACILITY

Suitland, Maryland NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION SATELLITE OPERATIONS FACILITY Suitland, Maryland

04 Architecture for Monitoring Earth and Sky 13 Light and Landscape Penetrate the Interiors 20 General Facts About the Building 26 Biography: The Architect 31 The Design and Construction Team 35 U.S. General Services Administration and the Design Excellence Program 2 3 ARCHITECTURE FOR MONITORING EARTH AND SKY

From issuing tornado warnings that have the satellites are housed within a slender, saved hundreds of lives to measuring horizontal bar raised above the ground the depth of polar ice caps, the National and crowned by antennae and satellite Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration equipment. Below the control facility, (NOAA) plays a crucial role in monitoring administrative offices are placed in and preserving our environment. Its new a disc-shaped, underground concrete satellite control facility advances this structure, topped by a “green” roof mission by providing offices and technical resembling a grassy field. space for NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service In addition to identifying the dual (NESDIS), which manages the collection, functional roles of the building, this processing, and distribution of information physical separation allows the satellite related to weather and climate. operations building, which has limited access, to function round-the-clock, every The 208,000-square-foot building is day of the year, independently of the located on 15.6 wooded and grassy acres support offices. In architectural terms, within the Federal Center in Suitland, the separation explicitly expresses the two Maryland, just outside Washington, DC. missions of the building—the gathering The architect took advantage of the site to and the processing of information— preserve the environment while providing through a striking juxtaposition of a highly sophisticated infrastructure for architectural forms. satellite operations and data processing. The most visible structure is the three- Divided into two distinctive components, story, 47,000-square-foot bar building the facility symbolizes NOAA’s mission dedicated to the control and operations of to monitor sky and earth by blurring the satellites and associated data processing. the boundaries between architecture and Its long, horizontal façades are clad in landscape. Technical functions related to panels of corrugated aluminum and cement

4 fiberboard to convey a machinelike feeling the southern end of the control facility, sympathetic to the building’s technical and large metal letters spelling out “NOAA” scientific activities. The fiberboard panels, create an iconic identity for the stewards applied in a staggered pattern, cover the of this 21st century facility. entire east façade and are punctuated by several horizontal strip windows. On the Extending underneath the sleek control upper portion of the west façade, they are building, the administrative office block applied over an outwardly angled metal truss. acts as a foundation, both literally and figuratively, to support the satellite This truss is part of an exposed steel operations. Built of concrete, the sunken superstructure supported on large, splayed mat foundation and upper walls curve legs that extend to either side of the outward to extend into the landscape control tower’s main volume. The dynamic under a grassy berm punctured by circular framework, with its built-in staircases, skylights and rectangular garden courtyards. jutting angles, and exposed satellite At the southwestern edge, the concrete equipment, appears reminiscent of the structure rises above ground to reveal scaffolding around rocket launch pads. a band of windows tracing its curve. It boldly announces NOAA’s mission to monitor the Earth from space. Most of the structure remains beneath the earth to merge with the landscape, a gesture The steel superstructure also serves a representative of NOAA’s environmental vital purpose in supporting and providing stewardship. Creating the berm over the access to the antennae that pitch and subterranean office block required building sweep to receive information from NOAA’s up the roof from layers of waterproof satellites in space. The building contains membranes, insulation, drainage boards, high-technology equipment, including 16 and lightweight soil. Planted over this antennae that control more than $3 billion roof around circular skylights and garden in environmental satellites. Emerging from courtyards are grasses and native plants

5 to create an expanse of green. The only projecting structure in this field is a small concrete and glass pavilion at the northeast corner, which houses an emergency exit stair from the subterranean office area.

Along its front, west-facing side, the office block is cut away to reveal a vehicular ramp to the 284-space parking garage underneath the building and an adjacent service area. Next to the garage entrance, a plaza provides a place for cranes to hoist the satellite equipment onto the roof. On the southern edge of this space, a concrete pedestrian ramp extends from an on-grade, 56-space visitor parking lot to the main entrance on the upper floor of the office wing.

Site Plan

6 Section View

7 8 9 The siting of the building in the ground, under a landscaped green roof, is a performance-based move that not only improves energy efficiency in real terms but also educates the public and embodies the federal government’s commitment to sustainability.

Thom Mayne Architect, Morphosis

10 11 12 LIGHT AND LANDSCAPE PENETRATE THE INTERIORS

The entrance is tucked into the side of the translucent polycarbonate on walls and building’s front porch, an outdoor vestibule ceilings to transmit daylight while still sheltered by a canopy finished in metal maintaining privacy. mesh, which extends inside the building to form the ceilings in the public areas. Sections of the office floor that are Just beyond the front door is a 15,000- underground are also designed to provide square-foot area of public spaces. The access to light and views. Four outdoor, secure lobby with its concrete floors leads glass-enclosed courtyards are strategically to several conference rooms with angular inserted into the expanse of the office floor windows and a separate elevator lobby for to filter daylight into the two-story space. access to the satellite control facilities in Landscaped with raised concrete planters the above-ground structure. and gingko trees, they bring an element of nature inside the building and ensure Stretching eastward, the 146,000 square feet that every employee is no further than of open office areas are arranged around a 60 feet away from a window. At the front square, two-level ring of shared support and of the building on this level, a cafeteria meeting rooms at the center. Steel staircases, and an exercise room are arranged around finished in stainless-steel and aluminum, a fifth courtyard that extends along the provide access from the double-height office entrance ramp. areas to the upper level of this support ring. Sunlight also permeates the subterranean The 14-foot-high southwestern perimeter level through 21 circular, domed skylights of the office floor is enclosed in a tall, in the ceiling, which is supported by curving window wall that filters natural concrete columns. Augmenting this natural light into the open space. Within this illumination are ceiling-mounted compact area, private offices and conference rooms fluorescent light fixtures fitted into custom are treated as freestanding structures to metal grids. This grid pattern is also echoed partition the larger, main space. These in the carpet tiles covering the access one-story volumes are framed in panels of flooring throughout the office areas.

13 14 15 16 17 18 Above the open offices, the concrete ceiling On the third floor below the control subtly curves upward to 23 feet to form rooms, racks of supercomputers and other a broad, shallow dome. This curvature, equipment are arranged on an open floor formed by the underside of the green roof, to support the sophisticated networks is meant to simulate the earth’s curvature required of NOAA’s satellite missions. as seen by satellites orbiting in space. Large The building is also fitted with electrical murals of satellite imagery mounted on generators for emergency operations, the walls throughout the offices surround crucial to this 24/7 mission critical facility. the employees with stunning images of the fruits of their own work.

Rising from the office wing, a five-level satellite operations block is arranged around a two-story Satellite Operations and Control Center on the north side of its uppermost levels. This command center with its wall of electronic display screens serves as the “brain” of the facility. Wrapping around its perimeter on the upper level is a glass-enclosed observation room, which also provides a view of another control room adjacent to the main operations center. NOAA primarily uses this smaller, two-story operations space, which also features a built-in display wall, when its satellites are launched into space.

19 GENERAL FACTS ABOUT THE BUILDING

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric The purpose of NOAA’s new satellite Administration was formed in 1970 as control facility is to provide timely access an organization within the Department to global data related to weather and of Commerce. NOAA brought together climate. The complex is home to NOAA’s some of the oldest agencies in the federal National Environmental Satellite, Data, government. They include the U.S. Coast and Information Service (NESDIS), which and Geodetic Survey, a descendent of the manages the collection, processing and country’s first physical science agency; the distribution of data and images produced Survey of the Coast, established in 1807 by satellites. The prime client for this by President Thomas Jefferson; the U.S. information is NOAA’s National Weather Weather Bureau, established in 1870; and Service, which uses it to create forecasts the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries for television, radio, and weather advisory formed in 1871. services.

Over the past 35 years, NOAA has Information gathered by NESDIS is also evolved into a scientific agency capable used to detect forest fires and volcanic ash, of reaching from the surface of the sun monitor the ozone hole over the South to the bottom of the sea. It has become an Pole, and study oceans, coastal regions and essential service, measuring and managing farmland. The satellites also pick up distress difficult environmental challenges all over signals during catastrophic natural disasters the world. Today, NOAA is comprised and assist in search and rescue missions. of the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service; National Until the completion of the new satellite Marine Fisheries Service; National Ocean control facility, NOAA’s satellite operations Service; National Weather Service; were headquartered in a World War II-era Oceanic and Atmospheric Research; building within the Federal Center in Marine and Aviation Operations; and Suitland, Maryland, outside Washington, the nation’s seventh uniformed service, DC. This 226-acre suburban campus the NOAA Corps. was established in 1941 by the federal

20 21 government to supplement federal office through the office wing to support the space within the District of Columbia. floors of the steel-framed control building. Today, the Suitland Federal Center consists of almost 3 million square feet of rentable Framing the ends of the control facility space and accommodates a number of is a steel superstructure on splayed legs federal tenants, including the Census that supports the antennae used to receive Bureau, the National Archives, and the data from NOAA’s satellites in space. The National Maritime Intelligence Center. main truss connecting this structure at the top of the building is covered in fiber- The new satellite control facility and cement panels. These panels are applied administrative offices for NESDIS are to the uppermost and central portion of housed within a 208,000-square-foot the west façade. This side of the control building on 15.6 acres within the Suitland building also incorporates sheathing of Federal Center. The control facility rises corrugated aluminum, which wraps around three stories above grade and the office the southeast corner. The east façade is wing extends one story above grade on completely clad in fiber-cement panels and its southern side. In an attempt to blur punctuated by horizontal strip windows. the distinction between building and landscape, most of the office space is The building is entered from the west side submerged two stories underground below along a concrete ramp extending from a a shallow, concrete dome covered by 56-car parking lot. Also accommodated on waterproofing, insulation, and lightweight this side of the building are a utility area, soil to support a grassy roof. a vehicular ramp leading to a 284-space underground parking garage, and an access The cast-in-place concrete structure of the area for satellite-hoisting cranes. 161,000-square-foot office wing, including public conference rooms, a cafeteria and an Inside the building, public functions, exercise room, forms a base to the above- including a cafeteria, exercise area and ground control building. Columns extend conference rooms, are arranged off the

22 main lobby on the west side of the related to collection of weather and administrative offices. The two-story open climate data. An entire floor of computer office areas are sunken below the entrance equipment, housed on the third level, level and reached by elevator and stairs. supports their activities. They are arranged around a square ring of support and meeting spaces, designed as a Public spaces throughout the building two-story structure that divides the open feature metal-mesh ceilings, concrete office areas. floors, and gypsum wall board. Installed throughout the offices and control spaces Daylight within the largely underground are access floors, modular carpet, and work area is supplied by 21 circular compact fluorescent lighting. skylights and four, glass-enclosed garden courtyards planted with gingko trees and other native vegetation. An additional courtyard flanks the entrance to supply natural light to a cafeteria and exercise room on the building’s west side. Along the southern perimeter of the office area, a window wall of insulated glass emits sunlight into the space.

The 47,000-square-foot operations division in the above-grade portion of the building centers on a pair of two-story spaces extending from the fourth through fifth levels. These mission control centers, which can be viewed from a glass-enclosed observation room on the fifth level, are used to monitor and launch satellites

23 Location Parking

A 15.6-acre site in the Federal Center, 340 Parking Spaces Suitland, MD 284 Spaces Underground 56 Spaces Above Ground Size Foundation 208,271 Gross Square Feet Cast-in-Place Concrete 15,000 Square Feet of Public Entry Spaces and Conference Rooms Structure 146,000 Square Feet of Above-Grade Cast-in-Place Concrete, and Underground Office Space Steel Truss System 47,000 Square Feet of Control Facility Space Roof 120,000-Square-Foot “Green” Roof Building Heights

80-Foot-High Control Facility Mechanical 23-Foot-High Office Area Under Underfloor Air Distribution Shallow Dome 14-Foot-High Office Area at Above- Exterior Walls Ground Southwestern Perimeter Exposed cast-in-place concrete, aluminum and fiber-cement panels Time Frame over steel Design Awarded: January 2001 Final Design Approved: September 2002 Interior Finishes Constructed Started: May 2003 Exposed concrete, painted drywall, Occupancy: March 2006 modular carpet

24 25 BIOGRAPHY: THE ARCHITECT

Thom Mayne founded the - International commissions include: the based architectural practice Morphosis Hypo-Alpe-Adria Center, a mixed-use bank in 1972 to develop an architecture headquarters in Klagenfurt, Austria; Sun that would eschew the bounds of Tower, a retail office building in , traditional forms and materials. Today, Korea; the ASE Design Center in Taipei, the firm consists of a group of more than Taiwan; and a social housing project in 40 professionals who are committed to the , . Recent large-scale planning practice of architecture as a collaborative projects include the award-winning enterprise. With projects worldwide, the NYC2012 Olympic Village, and the firm’s work ranges in scale from residential, Urbanizacion Rio Manzanares in Madrid, institutional, and civic buildings to large Spain. Over the past 30 years, Morphosis urban planning projects. Among its recent has received 25 Progressive Architecture government projects are the new Federal awards, 58 American Institute of Architects Building in San Francisco, CA; Wayne (AIA) awards, and numerous other honors. L. Morse United States Courthouse in Eugene, OR; and Caltrans District Mayne is also an educator as well as a 7 Headquarters in Los Angeles, CA. practicing architect. He co-founded the Representative educational projects include: influential Southern California Institute the Dr. Theodore T. Alexander, Jr. Science of Architecture and has held teaching Center School, a joint venture between positions at , Harvard the California Science Center and the University, , the Berlage Los Angeles Unified School District; the Institute in the Netherlands, and the Diamond Ranch High School in Pomona, Bartlett School of Architecture in London. CA; and the soon to be constructed Cahill Currently, he holds a tenured faculty Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics position at the UCLA School of the Arts at Caltech, in Pasadena, CA, and Albert and Architecture. Nerken School of Engineering of the for the Advancement In 2005, Mayne was awarded the Pritzker of Science and Art in New York City. Architecture Prize, the profession’s highest

26 honor. His distinguished honors also include a Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy of Design in Rome (1987), the Alumni of the Year Award from the University of Southern California (1992), Member Elect from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1992), the 2000 American Institute of Architects/Los Angeles Gold Medal in Architecture, and the Chrysler Design Award of Excellence (2001).

Mayne received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Southern California in 1968 and his Master of Architecture from in 1978.

27 The NOAA Satellite Operations Facility is a singular building, with a program unique in this country.

NOAA scientists, in their role as caretakers of the earth——observing, analyzing, and quantifying geological and ecological information, look down at the world and at themselves from satellites hundreds of miles in the sky. We decided to leave the site as we found it, an open landscape with a single line of building above ground along the meridian. The NOAA project is literally engaged in the landscape, its employees inhabiting the space of the earth.

Thom Mayne Architect, Morphosis

28 29 30 THE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION TEAM

Owner Design Excellence National Peers General Contractor U.S. General Services Administration Laurie Hawkinson P. J. Dick, Inc. Regional Office: National Capital Smith-Miller + Hawkinson Architects Pittsburgh, PA Region New York, NY Construction Quality Manager James Garrison Design Architects Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc. Garrison Architects Arlington, VA Morphosis New York, NY Los Angeles, California Karen Van Lengen Civil Engineer Architect of Record School of Architecture A. Morton Thomas & Associates University of Virginia Einhorn Yaffee Prescott Rockville, MD Charlottesville, VA Washington, DC Structural Engineer Construction Excellence National Peers GSA Project Team Cagley & Associates Frank Spears Rockville, MD Jag R. Bhargava (project director) SG Contracting, Inc. W. James Hopkins (project manager) (formerly with The Beck Group) Electrical and Mechanical Engineer Vince E. Matner (contracting officer) Atlanta, GA Roger J. Perrault (reality specialist) Einhorn Yaffee Prescott Chuck DesMoineaux Washington, DC Jacobs Facilities Inc. Golden, CO Security Design Dan Absher Jacor Absher Construction McLean, VA Puyallup, WA Landscape Architect Construction Manager EDAW 3D/International Alexandria, VA Washington, DC

31 32 33 34 U.S. GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION AND THE DESIGN EXCELLENCE PROGRAM

Public buildings are part of a nation’s legacy. Principles for Federal Architecture: They are symbolic of what Government is (1) producing facilities that reflect the dignity, about, not just places where public business enterprise, vigor and stability of the federal is conducted. government, emphasizing designs that embody the finest contemporary and architec- The U.S. General Services Administration tural thought; (2) avoiding an official style; (GSA) is responsible for providing work and (3) incorporating the work of living environments and all the products and American artists in public buildings. In this services necessary to make these environments effort, each building is to be both an individ- healthy and productive for federal employees ual expression of design excellence and part and cost-effective for the American of a larger body of work representing the best taxpayers. As builder for the federal civilian that America’s designers and artists can leave government and steward of many of our to later generations. nation’s most valued architectural treasures that house federal employees, GSA is To find the best, most creative talent, the committed to preserving and adding to Design Excellence Program has simplified America’s architectural and artistic legacy. the way GSA selects architects and engineers for construction and major renovation GSA established the Design Excellence projects and opened up opportunities for Program in 1994 to change the course emerging talent, small, small disadvantaged, of public architecture in the federal and women-owned businesses. The program government. Under this program, adminis- recognizes and celebrates the creativity and tered by the Office of the Chief Architect, diversity of the American people. GSA has engaged many of the finest architects, designers, engineers, and artists The Design Excellence Program is the working in America today to design the recipient of a 2003 National Design Award future landmarks of our nation. Through from the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design collaborative partnerships, GSA is imple- Museum, and the 2004 Keystone Award menting the goals of the 1962 Guiding from the American Architectural Foundation.

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PHOTOGRAPHY: MAXWELL MACKENZIE